PSYCHOLOGY --- Depression, chapter 1 ---- The social stigma

Greetings everyone. Today I will talk about depression itself and the stigma it causes !!!

1- Some statistics on depression:

Depression is a disease affecting 350 million people worldwide, according to data released by the World Health Organization. In 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, that number grew 18.4%.

In Brazil, 5.8% of the population suffers from this problem, which affects a total of 11.5 million Brazilians. According to WHO data, Brazil is the country with the highest prevalence of depression in Latin America and the second most prevalent in the Americas, behind only the United States, which has 5.9% of depressives

Its existence in the world population is around 5%. However, one thing that WHO does not pass and that we psychologists and psychiatrists know, is that these 5% are the people who seek help. An immense part lives with the depression without knowing that it is with her and others know, however, they are not able to pay a treatment or for cultural reasons, they are ashamed to go to a psychologist to treat her, living with her life all.

Look at an example of a young man who may have depression and a mask:

Depression has a high impact on the life of the patient and his family, with significant impairment in social, physical, amoral, libido, occupational and other areas of functioning.

It can often lead to thoughts, attempts and even the consummation of suicide. Thus, it is important to investigate techniques that help reduce symptoms.

2-Do you know what the word social stigma means?

We psychologists study this concept early in the course. It was created by the anthropologist and sociologist Erving Goffman. It refers to a personal mark that accompanies the person during his entire life and which has a negative social value. For example, drug users are often seen as marginal. Blondes are seen as dumb (despite being joking), gays are always seen as promiscuous, gypsies are all homeless, etc. This stigma also acts on depressed people, causing society to have a prejudice about who is in this situation, generally thinking that whoever goes through it is irresponsible, loose, idle, weak, which is just excuse not to work .. I say this, because the concept that others have of someone, greatly influences their seclusion and lack of search for help.

In my personal opinion, both by observation inside and outside the office, there is no way to measure the number of depressives in the world. We may be living with a colleague who, sitting by our side every day, but for cultural reasons in the society we live in, keeps his condition in secret so that he is not misjudged by others, for whoever is vulnerable, tends to have people withdrawn from them, especially if it is a man, who by "social norms" has to put himself as superman, full of qualities and absence of defects. Women tend to have more humility in this area, to assume that they are in trouble and to seek support, be it family, religious, with friends (because they have more developed emotional intelligence (of course this is in general terms, particularly of each one) and psychotherapeutic. This makes the prevalence lower and the "coping" with this disease is less tortuous and more rapid relief of symptoms.

3-Do you know what is SELECTIVE ATTENTION?

It is a concept related to the person to focus on something that coexists a lot. For example, pregnant women see more baby clothing stores than non-pregnant women. A dentist will tend to look first at a person's teeth, because unintentionally it may be the first thing that will come to his head. A person who has puppies and loves them will be more likely to observe abandoned dogs on the street than people who do not have dogs and do not like them ..... That is, selective attention is the focus we give to things we experience with frequency.

Stop well to think and notice when you are walking on the street for example. I notice this all the time, because it is my profession, I take my selective attention to questions related to psychology. Most men do not even know that they are depressed, because when they usually have depression they do not get very sad, they tend to become more irritated because they have to mask their sadness. This makes beer more consumed by men than women. An immense part of those who present questions related to alcoholism involves depression, since the drink tends to alleviate their pains. A beer is very tasty, but when you need it to sleep for example, you can be sure that a more thorough investigation is needed.

I set the last paragraph, for psychology taught me not to judge others. If we see a guy at the bar drinking too much without control, it may be that the subject is a vagabond, as society puts it (since, in general, people with psychopathy tend not to have self-control under anything, then they become addicted to everything). "vagabonds" do not like to work and live from some sort of blow. For them, it's best to get away.
However, there is a generalization and everyone who is involved with drinking, for example, is treated that way. This is also verified in drugs, cigarettes, etc. The point is that in the bar, there may be a very depressed person who has a strong belief in helplessness and, if not helped, will tend to get worse and worse.

I put these last paragraphs, because, especially for clinical psychologists and mental health, the look under the other, the person who suffers, tends to have a lot of empathy. We can distinguish in this case, if we are faced with a psychopath or a person "punished by life," who could not deal with it and is in that state. These people are the ones who need the most help and the least who seek help. It is very important that public and private policies are created to make the general population have an idea of ​​what depression is and can see who owns it, since even a family can have someone like that and not understand that the person is in that situation . I do not know if you have seen them, because they are professionals from another area, but in my profession, there are many broken marriages, children expelled from home, etc ... because spouses or parents (relatives in general) do not understand anything about depression and find that what the person does is something deliberate to attract attention, to provoke or to the very religious, it is a lack of God in the heart. All this creates a snowball that grows more and more and tends to sink the person who goes through it, because with these pre-judgments it receives, it finds no shelter in any place, tending to get worse .....

I hope you can help them to help someone who goes through this, because one of the things that kills the person who goes through these problems, is the judgment that suffers, increasing their isolation from social life.

Initially I would write about what is the view of cognitive behavioral therapy on depression. But in the midst of writing I find it important to focus first on the issue of stigma that people in this situation suffer from and how it leaves them out of society, increasing their problem more and more. So I divided it into chapters. In the next post, I'll probably talk about depression's work on depression, or something specific within it.

I hope you have enjoyed it and can reflect on the illness that affects people in our country and in the world !!!

Thank you and good morning!!!